Goblin King
by Redaura
Summary: Say "Goblin King" five times to the mirror and he shall come with his hook and split you from groin to gut. Nothing like the book, but Sarah's runnig from the law, searching for Toby and feeling the pull of the Goblin King... Does she care?
1. Chapter 1: Once Upon a Time There Was A ...

Excuses: I watched Candy Man. Blame my best mate for her unintentional stimulus of my mind and scaring me silly. ;) And the Goblins, imagine them as the Goblins and Ogres in the Lord of the Rings. 

Warning for the screamish: it is a bit bloody, so if you're the kind that wouldn't touch a horror movie with someone else's barge pole, maybe you're better off without reading, though I doubt this is scary but to some it may be.

Disclaimer: The Goblin King and the Candy Man ideas don't belong to me. I don't make no money out of this either. 

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Goblin King.

"Once upon a time there was a girl, a very spoiled girl that was loved by her father because her mother was there. Together these three where very happy together and lived there ordinary lives as normally as can be. 

But then disaster struck. 

The girls mother decided she didn't love the family anymore, perhaps she never had and had just convinced herself to stay, but either way she decided to leave, one stormy night, when the heavens where screaming and lashing out with their pain...

She looked up from her book that she was reading, and listened. Really listened beyond the beautiful storms noises. 

"I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

"LINDA!"

"Don't come near me!" A crash of thunder, and then her fathers screams. They haunted her in the dark of her mind. And she clutched her little blood red book of fantasy and goodness not daring to move or to breath, but the body must have breath and so she went downstairs to find blood, black on the cream carpet. A hook in her father, his hand cut off.

Screaming, she ran next door, where the neighbours where luckily in.

And so the nightmare began. Her father wasn't interested in her, just his own disability, and he would see the girl as her mother, and so she read with a passion, that little blood red book, Labyrinth.

And when the evil and wicked stepmother came, she acted it out, to try and escape her growing age, thinking _when I am older_ and other such phrases until she was fifteen and interloper number two came.

A screaming brat that was selfish in her eyes, got everything he desired, took away her free time while the evil one and the handless one went out. And the brat screamed, and screamed and nothing would satisfy it, except maybe a story she thought. 

"...And no one knew that the Goblin King had fallen in love with the girl and given the girl certain powers. But she knew that if she where to wish the child away the Goblin King would keep it forever and ever, and so she held her tongue. 

"Until one day, when the girl was tired from a days house work and hurt form the cruel words of her stepmother and the baby just screamed and screamed... Oh, be quiet!" and she grabbed hold of him and tried to joggle him to sleep, after a while she gave up on that and threatened the direst threat she dared.

"I'll say the words... But I mustn't..." _But he won't shut up. Bastard._ And so she held him aloft and cried out the false words in the blood red book she beheld. 

"What's that?" the misshapen Goblins demanded, settled down in their piles of dirt and decay, their slime attracting flies. "She's an idiot! She'll taste well... Oh Goblin King! Allow us to prompt her!"

"Silence!" The voice demanded, and there was silence. 

"Oh, Toby, I really _do _wish that the Goblins would come and take you away..." Violently she flicked the light off, leaving her in the flash of the lightening. "Right now."

"Do... do... She's pretty enough for me!" The goblins laughed a vile laugh, not daring to protest at the Goblin King taking the girl for himself.

The girl, Sarah was her name for we should call her something, as the Goblin Kind knew what she had been called, sat in front of the mirror in her room and applied lipstick. Deep, crimson lipstick, like her mothers when she was let out of prison to act. She shook her head and started to clip her hair up, feeling disappointment that the Goblin King hadn't come. But a bit of relief, just a bit. 

"Goblin King. I wonder what you would look like?" She plucked her eyebrows wincing at her thick hairs. 

"Goblin King. I wonder what you are?" She laughed as she dusted her eyelids and cheeks with powders and pursed her lips and the mirror. She didn't look half-bad. "Goblin King. Goblin King." 

And as she brushed her teeth, she said it one last time, muttered it to her pearl teeth. "Goblin King."

The lights went out. "Shit! I hate power cuts at times like these!" She tugged her gothic top, with its red lacing down the back; netting over her bare shoulders and waist with v pointed sleeve cuffs that reached her middle fingers down to meet her purple flared cut off jeans. 

She shuddered as she heard a lull in the storm. There was no rain, no wind, not even a clock. Just her heart insisting on beating so hard and fast in fear of what she felt was behind.

"There's nothing there." She said firmly, and to prove the point she went to check on Toby.

"Toby... why aren't you crying!" She tore open doors and skidded to a halt just inside of the room. There was a little quaking pile in the middle of the cot that she could just make out... Slowly, trying to deny that anything was wrong she walked to it. Quickening she yanked the covers off to scream in horror as the smell of blood hit her. A... thing, it's tiny needle teeth glinting in the dark and it's round eyes chewed contentedly. "TOBY?! Where are you!" It barred it's fangs and hissed at her, spilling chewed meat at its feet.

"You know where he is." The voice was cruel and bitter as glaciers that destroyed the earth for the sake of it. Sarah didn't waste time, she ran. She flew to the kitchen where she grabbed a knife. 

"What was that for?" The voice asked her, right behind her. "_That_ is not going to save the baby, or he will end like the one in your bed..."

"Toby," Sarah throat was tight, making it hurt, "he's alright?"

"Yes." Sarah sagged with relief, "but..." Sarah stiffened, "The next time I am called by a disbeliever he will die with a hook from his groin to his gut. His blood will spill as it is mine to spill so it must flood the floor."

Sarah gasped as blood dripped on her and yelped a girls scream. "Give him back!"

The laughter was cruel, so cruel. "Why?"

"You can't do that! Please!" Sarah felt the despair fill her. "I want my brother!"

"Surely not the brat?"

Sarah gasped back a sob. "I didn't mean it..."

"What's said is said."

"But... What can I do?"

"You can forget the baby. You have problems of your own."

"Sarah, we're home... OH MY GOD!! TOBY! WHERE'S TOBY!"

Sarah dropped the knife, and held her hands out, "I can explain..."

"You're just like your mother! Stay away! The police are coming!"

Sarah did the only thing she could think of. She ran, out of the door, past her hysterical 'guardians' and ran and ran. She heard the police and the helicopters in a distant dream and still she ran until the town was behind her and dark was all around.

"They don't care for you. I do. Come to me. Come with me." Sarah, stricken turned around and saw him. 

"Give me back my brother."

"I will be generous Sarah. I will let you come instead of the child." Sarah opened her mouth to say 'yes', "But!" The Goblin King, his silhouette a deeper, darker more dangerous shadow "You will die in his place." 

Sarah hesitated.

"You have thirteen days to decide."

AN: Oh my, what is going to happen in thirteen days? What will she decide? What will the Goblin King do? Or should I quit while I'm still ahead? Please review, please. Or I'll wish you away...

I wouldn't really. Do you think it's scary? Or just disturbing? Or not even that?


	2. Chapter 2: But Now Real Life is Here

[_"Day one, Sarah, Day one."_]

A murmur in her mind, travelling on black wings of cowled death. The gleaming silver skull in its purple deadly purple haze. 

"Wha...?" She was thirsty, that she could tell. _Once upon a time's never tell you about practicalities and they fail to mention..._ She sat up in alarm, her head spinning. Where _was_ she? 
    
    She looked at the dirty white walls, the greasy bars and the sheeted board she was lying on. I'm in jail. It sent a thrill through her, the thrill that said she'd always wanted to be a bad girl. Why was she in prison? They still thought she had taken Toby… The knot returned to her stomach. Toby. 

In a way she had taken Toby, but in a way she hadn't. She had just wished it. Nothing else. 

She narrowed her eyes and thought of what had happened, still feeling the fear, but not enough to cloud what thinking she could do. Maybe she had ran out on Toby and got drunk, broken the law and was now hallucinating a great excuse for being arrested to tell her father and Karen. 

__

Yes, that's the one.

And the police would find Toby.

[_"Day one Sarah, day one."_]

Sarah sat with her near useless state attorney went over the story again. "From what I remember I heard someone in the house, so I went downstairs. I found no one and was worried about Toby-"

"But you hate Toby."

"No I do not. As I was saying, as I've said before – I went to check on Toby and found – the- the-"

"Body." The police agent supplied.

"The body when there was someone, but since there was a power cut I couldn't see and I was so scared so I ran for the kitchen where there is a torch expecting this person to grab me and... The torch is in that draw and I felt the person behind me and grabbed the first thing I could find which is when Karen and dad came home."

"Why did you run?"

"I was scared and I wanted to find Toby, my brother."

"You do realise that no evidence of a power cut or alcohol was found in your blood?" 

Sarah blinked, "maybe it was a fuse." _But I'm so sure!_

The police officer sighed and rubbed his head. "Ms Williams is on bail due to lack of evidence. But," he gave Sarah an intense cop-gaze, "if you know anything..."

Sarah nodded. "Where can he be?" she asked softly. 

She stiffened as she saw a figure behind him, black cloth in the shape of a man. A man with a hook and a tarnished, silver crown with decaying jewels. _Day one_, he mouthed. "Do not ignore me." He stated. She gasped, as no one else seemed to see him. 

"Is something wrong?" The officer asked, curiously.

"No- no-" Sarah forced a deep breath. "Nothings wrong-"

"I'm so glad to hear it." The hook rose and fell, out of Sarah's sight but she saw their shocked faces, the blood running out of their mouths and the smell, and his joy as more blood was caked on to his gloves. He walked forward, slowly, deliberately and leant over her. "And the day's do roll as does time." He gestured to a clock. A thirteen houred clock counting down the thirteen days. _How could I have thought he was not real? _Sarah wailed in her mind. She shuddered as he started to sing, an eerie, haunting melody coming from his voice.

"This is your time.

Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings. 

Watch the count down to the end of your days. 

This clock ticks life away. 

It's so unreal... 

(But believe it) 

Watch your time go right out the window..."

And in a magical swirl of black silk and cloth, he faded with his clock, out of the high window, swamping the only beam of light.

Then Sarah could find the breath to scream. And scream she did until her throat seemed to crack and she felt the needle slide in.

The colours where a keilidorscope. An ever-moving mass of bright, vivid colours and Sarah could laugh in glee. But the darkness was pulling at her, reminding her and shredding at her peace. "She's waking up." A flat voice that couldn't have given a damn either way. The lights blinded her eyes that felt puffy and she saw the floating cowl and crown... 

"Get away from me! NO! GO!" She reverted back to mindless screaming as he laughed a luxurious and fattening laugh almost indulgently at her. 

"My Sarah." A metal claw came out of the robes folds and gently chilled her cheek with a gentle caress. "You are running out of time with hysterics and your disbelief." He said it sadly, which was lost on Sarah, as the nurses obliviously put her under again.

__

If they where to put me down... And down and down she was sucked, down into the colossal plughole of the universe, where all the detritus is lost. Where time jumps to when it suicides out of windows... where reality is what you make it...

[_"Day ten, Sarah dear. Three days to go."]_

Sarah woke with a great sense of panic and foreboding. Not even a little peace in the ignorance of the half asleep. She was unrestrained, her blood needing limbs where transferred with her to a wheel chair where she was tied. The people who untied her where mere misty wraiths to her eye as she was wheeled down the endless, echoing corridors by pale watercolours of people buzzing all around, clashing with the dark.

She was turned to a door, pausing while it opened where everything cleared like a cataract operation. She could focus, after a fashion. **Dr. Croft: Child psychiatrist**, the door read. _I'm sixteen; I'm not a child!_ Sarah thought in outrage as she entered the room.

It was typical of the rooms she had been in lately. Dirty white... only the bars where to keep people in the tiny room, which was cramped by a large desk and a fat, short man. Sarah looked at the person in puzzlement, not understanding, still doped up. "Well, Sarah Williams." The mans fat jowls quivered, giving the impression of false grief. His piggy eyes took in her hospital nighty with her wasted limbs settled in a wheel chair with a lecherous gleam to his eyes. "How are you feeling?"

"Doped up." She found the voice to state. Her voice sounded strange even to her.

"Do you know why you are doped up?" Sarah shook her head. "You where being questioned as to Toby's disappearance and the knife you where found with when the people in the room with you mysteriously died. You went hysterical and..." The man with a grunt leaned over and with a visible effort and pressed a button. A lifeless screen leapt to life with static and snow dancing desperately on black. To keep it clean.

__

Dirty white. Sarah reflected pointlessly. The screen came to life with a picture of her being tied to a bed as she screamed and twisted desperately away from nothing. _But he was there!_ Sarah told herself outraged, and no one would believe her. She would have to tell them that she had been hallucinating due to the dope or something.

"You where crying out for the Goblin King, so they had to sedate you." _So much for that idea._ "Hmm, being sixteen you will probably have the later book. The one for children where the Goblin King is featured as a classical villain stealing children with a heroic princess winning the child back after an adventure through the Labyrinth." Sarah was silent. The man, _Dr_ Croft seemed satisfied by this and went on, "but do you know where they got the idea from?" Sarah felt her head shake a negative. "Well, in Robin Hoods time, while King Richard the Lionhearted was out wasting money leaving us to starve under King Johns rule there was a man, a beautiful yet definitely masculine man that would paint such pictures that all the nobles wanted him to paint their portrait. 

"But this painter like to paint what he saw, and what he saw in the nobles was not good. So he painted their greed, their selfishness and their stupidity and gluttony. Needless to say after upsetting many people rumours where spread in a time where fear of the devil was rampant. But as to not demean themselves the aristocracy deemed that the devil would do no more than grant children that he stole, or that where wished away to him to be turned into Goblins until the Goblin King, as this man became known as, could sacrifice them to him. 

"Now, these nobles had the man killed, brutally and savagely, but instead of killing him the truth mixed with the lies, and turned into folk law, which in turn went to myth and legend, so the Goblin King was rumoured to live on, so in a way he did. People have been taking his name and taking children, have been doing so in this area for ages as the myth travelled to the New World, a variation on a new theme. He did not want the wished away ones or the summoners to become Goblins, but for them to die.
    
    "And so someone must have decided to use the identity as a killing name." The shrink looked steadily at Sarah, his eyes consuming her breasts anew after his tale. He stood up and waddled to stand in front of her.
    "What do you think of that?"
    Sarah noticed with revulsion that he was dirty and breathing raggedly. _But then I haven't exactly been washed lately myself either..._ "It makes a pretty tale."
    "But do you believe?" Sarah was silent. "Would you like to call him for me?" He reached down and touched her breasts, still soft and firm under the coarse cloth and she was all tied down and accused of being delusional. "Who would believe you?"
    "I could call him."
    The fat shrink smiled, showing his little teeth peeking out from behind his fleshy lip. "Real-"
    Sarah's eyes went wide ovals as blood poured from his mouth down to his chin. Several violent janks later and he was gutted on the floor. The Goblin King had been summoned. There was a mirror behind Sarah.
    "But once I'm invited, I'm always here." He spread his arms wide, the sleeves of his robes spraying blood. The hook, heavy with dried gore cut her bonds and she flinched as lines of dried blood where left on her arms. "Come with me Sarah. Give up. You can not match me. We where meant to be."
    Her mouth worked. "Toby..."
    She could feel the anger a blazing fire as he left leaving her in a circle of fire that was reaching higher and higher it tongues reaching out to her, singing her hair and leaving her bone dry.
    ["You _will _be_ mine._"]
    AN: I am just so not sure about this chapter. Is it to much of a rip-off of the movie? I know the movie has the black/white thing and this doesn't (though we don't know what the Goblin King looks like, Candy Man known for colour and Goblin King known for paleness. What to do...) Back to the point of this AN. I think this chapter is the best out of five I have written. I am still not happy with it. Suggestions will be loved and adored and are needed. I have no idea where this is going. :(
    But, on a better note:
    Kim, The Maliplatice Little Monster: thanks, I'm glad it's different from the norm
    alorindanya: :-D
    Silver Space: I wonder what is going to happen
    Midnight Lady: I'm glad you think it works :) the first chapter's always easier than the second.
    terrie: thanks for all the reviews you've left :)
    Takley the Neverhoodian: review this and I'll wish you away ;)
    Anyastazya: thank you! Did I mention I love your stories?
    Sabrina. V. Sinistra: *comes out of hiding and waves second chapter in face* Since I've updated this do I deserve another chapter of 'Night of the Blue Moon'? Go on...

Lyn: Thank you.
    
    I tell you, the spell check had a field day with your names ;) Please review, please? *Candy Man x Goblin King standing behind you* "Review..." he growls. Sexily naturally. ;)


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